Telegram Stories now available to all users for free; this killer feature gives it edge over Instagram, WhatsApp, others

financialexpress.com:

Telegram announced on Monday that the instant messaging platform is now officially making Stories available for everyone. This feature isn’t new to the app, it was earlier available to only Premium users. This may come as a gift to all users as Telegram prepares to celebrate its 10th anniversary.

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Telegram’s Stories feature comes different from Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook or even WhatsApp’s ‘status’. You don’t get the option to edit stories once you’ve posted them, however, Telegram lets you edit them after posting.

“For the first time in the history of social media, you can update any element of your story at any time – changing its visibility, caption, on-screen text, stickers or anything else – without having to delete and repost it from scratch,” Telegram’s latest blog post reads.

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You can decide who gets to see your Stories: everyone, your contacts, a few chosen people, or your close friends. Stories will be shown at the top of your chats list, and you can hide Stories from specific contacts by moving them to the “Hidden” list in your Contacts.

Moreover, you can also choose when your story disappears. For example, it can go away after six, 12, 24, or 48 hours. Or, you can keep Stories on your profile page forever, like Instagram’s Story highlights.

Even though everyone can use Stories on Telegram, not just the people who pay, there’s something special for those who have Premium accounts. These special users can use a feature called Stealth Mode.

This feature makes it so that when they look at someone’s